The Journeyers
by Medie
Summary: She had the eyes of someone who knew the secrets of the universe. (TripOther pairing. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer crossover)


Title: The Journeyers  
  
Fandoms: Enterprise/BTVS  
  
Pairing: Trip/Willow  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own them.  
  
Notes: Trip gave me hell on this so it's not very long but pretty good! Written for the latest ithurtsmybrain round.  
  
"The Journeyers"  
by M.  
-------  
  
She had the eyes of someone who knew the secrets of the universe. Trip loved her eyes. Loved the fact she was a mystery. That there was more about her unknown to him than known. From the day he met her in downtown San Francisco she fascinated him. She'd smiled at him one night in the 602 Club and he'd seen eternity in her smile. Willow was an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a conundrum and, well, Trip'd always liked puzzles. She was there every time he went in. As if she knew he'd be there before he did.  
  
He didn't question it much. That wasn't the puzzle he wanted to solve.  
  
He'd never met a woman like her. They spent their time together talking and laughing quietly in a corner, her hand clasped gently in Trip's, his eyes focused intensely on hers. There was no one else in the club for either one and they liked it that way.  
  
Sex was almost an afterthought but one he welcomed willingly. Waking up next to Willow was something he could get used to. In fact, it was something he got used to. Entirely too quickly. The image of her red hair spilling across the pillow, her curves under the whiteness of the sheet, and the smile on her face was one he'd never lose. Neither was the soft, sleepy sound of her voice murmuring his name in greeting. Her lazy, "Morning, Trip..." would never fail to come into his mind when he woke in the morning.  
  
So many other things would stay with him as well. Willow was a walking contradiction. She could make computers do anything from recite nursery rhymes on command to calculate a starship's flight plan with ease but yet she still practised an old Earth religion called Wicca and commented she'd been doing so for so long, she couldn't imagine stoping. He knew Willow was completely human, from the top of her head to her perfect little toes, he'd acquainted himself with every inch of her. But, she made comments he couldn't understand. References to things that had happened a hundred years before as if she'd been there to see them and, somehow, he got the impression she had.  
  
He didn't understand it, but he didn't overtly question it either. Willow would tell him in her own time and that was precisely when she meant it to be. Not a minute before, not a minute less. He'd learned that quickly. Willow-timing was some of the best timing around. Vulcans weren't as precise as she was. Another thing he loved about her.  
  
She had an amazing sense of the mystical world, an awareness that he'd never seen before. In a time when science ruled, she still believed in things like vampires and mystical forces. That there were things science and its reason had no place for but existed anyway. The thing of it was, when she believed it, when she spoke about it, he believed it too. Still does.  
  
Willow convinced him of it with a thousand different things she did. Said. She knew things that no one else would. Noticed things that everyone else missed. If, what he'd suspected about her was true, then she'd lived long enough to know an awful lot of things and see a lot of things no body else would. A lesson he'd learn in detail when he joined Enterprise. Never get too comfy with science, just when you think you've learned everything, somebody shows up and promptly proves you know pretty much nothing.  
  
The universe, Trip knew, was mean like that. Had an awful habit of proving just how little you really knew when you got too full of yourself. Zefram Cochrane had been treated to that. His warp flight'd introduced humanity to the Vulcans. Biggest bunch of know-it-alls the universe had to offer. Well, at least it seemed like it. For all he knew, the Vulcans'd been treated to the same damn thing. The universe might be mean. But it was mean to everybody. Trip appreciated fairness. Even fair unfairness.  
  
Willow was partially responsible for that. She'd hinted at experiencing things that brought whole new meaning to the words loss, pain and grief. She'd survived so much and seen so much though, she never really talked about it, that he knew if she could...he could.  
  
He had no idea how much that would mean to him in time.  
  
When he'd left to join Enterprise, they weren't together anymore. Hadn't been for a while but Willow, ever constant in his life, had still come to see him off. The feeling of her lips on his cheek and the look of the secretive smile on her face would stay with him through the mission. As would the memory of his asking, "What's that look for?"  
  
The question that was answered by her smile widening and her voice saying, "I'm excited. For you." She stretched up to kiss him again and added, "It's what everything's been leading up to, Trip. This journey." Her eyes filled with a nostalgic sadness. "The journey's the best part but...you don't realize it until you've reached the end." She smiled again, forcing away the sadness. "Enjoy the journey. No matter what it brings."  
  
Finis 


End file.
